


Love or War

by chiiyo86



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drinking, Drunk Sex, Enemies, Hate Sex, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-21 10:16:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9543341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/pseuds/chiiyo86
Summary: During a class reunion, Ron gets into a drinking contest with Draco Malfoy. There's no way it can end well, is there?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MildredMost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MildredMost/gifts).



> It's been a while since I've reviewed the canon, soooooo I really hope I hit the right notes. Enjoy the treat (hopefully)!

Ron couldn’t remember who had come up with the idea of doing yearly class reunions. It was more of a Muggle tradition than a wizard one, but with everything that had happened when they were at school most people had jumped on the concept. Even if he’d never really graduated, Ron usually loved going to those. It was a good occasion to drink and reminisce, and it was nice seeing everyone again. These days he mostly saw Harry and Hermione, and occasionally Neville and Luna. 

This year, though, their class reunion found him in somewhat of a black mood. Work was tough and frustrating, and whoever had chosen the date for their reunion had thought it would be a good idea to do it on the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. Problem was, Ron never felt very cheery on the anniversary of his brother’s death. Harry, who wasn’t overly fond of this kind of socialising and usually attended to please Ron, was actually the one who encouraged him to go this time.

“It’ll do you good to get out of the flat, mate,” he’d said. “You’re going to spend the night drinking anyway. At least you’ll be in good company.”

Hermione had backed Harry up, and there was nothing Ron could do against those two teaming up, especially when they spoke sense.

They’d got into the habit of renting the Leaky Cauldron’s ground floor for the event, and this year was no exception. After dinner, they’d retreated to the bar and started drinking. When Ron looked up from his glass and glanced around him, he realised that their numbers had drastically dwindled and that it was quite dark outside.

A hand slipped around his shoulder and a faint herbal scent hit his nose. “I’m going home, Ron,” Hermione murmured to his ear. “I have to get up early tomorrow.”

She always had to get up early, and it was a miracle that she’d even managed to make it. She kissed his cheek, and then kissed Harry’s. Ron watched her walk away with a vague sense of loss, fortunately cushioned by the alcohol he’d ingested. They were going through one of their ‘off’ periods; Ron wasn’t sure what had caused the break this time, but he suspected that it was just that Hermione’s work was getting to be too much. Not that she would ever admit it, of course—in Hermione’s world, there was no such thing as ‘too much work.’

By his side, Harry was falling asleep over the bar, his face buried in his crossed arms. Neville was gone, and Ron couldn’t remember if he’d told them goodbye. Seamus was making out with a girl whose name Ron couldn’t remember. He could see a few clusters of people from other houses spread around the shadowed room. Even though the reunion was supposed to gather everyone in their year, people still tended to band with others from the same house—only the former members of Dumbledore’s Army dared break down barriers. 

Ron’s bladder was letting him know he’d had way too much beer so he lurched to his feet, mumbling to Harry, “Need to piss. I’ll be back.”

Harry only groaned in response. Ron patted his shoulder, and started making his way through the room. Chairs and tables kept blocking his path, and it took him a little while to reach the loo. When he got there he was welcomed with the revolting sounds of someone puking. He hesitated, the stench of vomit turning his stomach, but the need to pee was too pressing. He went to the urinals, only glancing in direction of the stalls long enough to see someone kneeling on the floor through an open door. 

He looked away, but he’d still caught a glimpse of pale blond hair and had an inkling of who it was. He ground his teeth and focused on the urinal in front of him. He didn’t cross paths with Malfoy that often and when he did he generally managed to ignore him. Harry was actually able to be civil with the bloke, but Ron wasn’t that much of a forgiving soul.

He heard the toilet being flushed, and indeed it was Malfoy who left the stall and went to wash his mouth at the sink. They both did their business in mutual icy ignorance, and Ron waited for Malfoy to leave before him, not wanting them to get out of the toilet at the same time.

At the bar Harry was now dead to the world, and no amount of shaking Ron did managed to rouse him. So even though he wanted to go to bed Ron sat back, sighing. They shared a flat, and he couldn’t drag Harry back home if Harry wasn’t cooperating at least a little. 

“I see that the great Potter can’t hold his drink,” an acerbic voice commented.

Ron glanced up from the new pint he’d just ordered. “Sod off, Malfoy,” he said with more weariness than bite. “Also, might I remind you of who I just found puking in the loo?”

Malfoy’s pale cheeks went pink. “It wasn’t because of the alcohol,” he said, looking away. “It’s because of the smell of—reminded me of the Dark—of—” He snapped his mouth shut.

Ron took another sip of his beer. Harry might feel bad for Malfoy’s situation during the war, but the last thing Ron wanted was to pity the bastard. _He_ hadn’t lost anyone. And Fred would probably roll around in his grave if he knew that Ron was feeling anything even close to pity toward a Malfoy. Ron drank again; his vision was getting blurry and he wanted Malfoy to get the hell away.

But Malfoy, annoying weasel that he was, sat down at the bar next to Ron and ordered a beer.

“Bet I can drink you under the table,” he said, mouth curving at the corner with the hint of a smirk.

He must have been a little drunk already to ignore the pretty damn obvious signals Ron was sending him, and to break their usual policy of mutual avoidance. Malfoy hadn’t sought out Ron or his friends since the Battle of Hogwarts. When he’d been trying to _capture_ Harry.

“You’re on, Malfoy,” Ron said, when he thought he’d meant to tell Malfoy to leave him alone. He was probably more than a little drunk himself. He downed the rest of his drink. “Another one, Tom,” he asked the bald barman. “What are we betting?”

“Winner gets to ask something of the loser. Anything goes.”

Ron felt a shiver run over the skin of his arms. It was a stupid risk to take, giving Malfoy even a small chance to have power over him, and if Harry were awake he’d probably tell Ron not to do it. Malfoy was looking at him, a steely challenging glint in his eyes. His cheeks were still a little flushed, maybe because of how hot it was in the room. _You can totally win this_ , a small voice whispered at the back of his mind.

“All right,” Ron said. “Get ready to lose, then.”

Malfoy chuckled, and the sardonic sound reminded Ron of their school years and of the thousands insults and nasty comments aimed at Ron and his friends. He was definitely _not_ going to lose.

They started drinking in grim, determined silence. Ron had done drinking contests before, and they were generally accompanied by roaring laughter and shouted encouragements from the audience. Here, there wasn’t any audience, and Ron didn’t feel like he was enjoying himself. He wished Harry would wake up and give him an excuse to go home, but he was too proud to put an end to this on his own.

At some point, Malfoy wavered on his stool and Ron arched an eyebrow at him.

“Ooooohhh,” he said with a slight slur. “Giving up already, Malfoy?”

Gripping the edge of the counter, Malfoy glowered at him. “You wish, Weasley. I’ll have another one, Tom.”

Tom’s bald skull gleamed under the wavering lights of the candles. It had been captivating Ron for a while. Was Tom polishing it every night to make it gleam like that? Ron wanted to ask, but the image of a chiding Hermione held him back.

“What was that smell?” he asked instead.

“What smell?”

“The one that made you puke.”

Malfoy narrowed his eyes until Ron could only see a sliver of grey. “None of your bloody business, Weasley,” he said snappishly. “Am I asking you what’s going on between you and Granger?”

Ron felt the tips of his ears grow hot. “Hermione and me are _fine_ ,” he said, knowing he was giving Malfoy what he wanted but unable to help it. “She’s busy, that’s all.”

“Maybe she’s just tired of your whining,” Malfoy murmured over the rim of his glass. 

Ron slammed his pint on the counter. “What was that?” he asked, even though he was sure of what he’d heard.

He even slid off his stool, ready to rip into Malfoy, but unfortunately he misjudged the distance between his feet and the floor and he stumbled. 

Malfoy sniggered at him. “Ready to give up?” he asked mockingly.

Ron wanted very badly to punch him in the mouth, but when he glanced at Tom he saw the barman squint his eyes disapprovingly.

“Never,” he said, and climbed back on his stool. “Let’s drink. What should we drink to?”

“Well, I guess the Battle of Hogwarts is the theme of the night.” Malfoy raised his glass. “To victory!”

There was a hard pinch to his mouth and Ron couldn’t tell whether he was being sarcastic or not. The idea that he might be irked Ron, though. 

“Your ‘Dark Lord’ getting his comeuppance _was_ a victory,” he said.

He heard Malfoy’s teeth click against his glass. “He wasn’t _my_ Dark Lord,” Malfoy hissed.

“Could’ve fooled me. Thought I’d seen him live at your mansion.”

“You think we had a—” Malfoy’s fingers tightened around his glass and he looked ahead rather than at Ron. “Let’s not talk about this.”

Ron actually agreed. He didn’t want to talk about the war, didn’t even want to think about it. The whole point of drinking the night away was to _forget_. And yet the words tumbled out of his lips without his consent, almost as though he were under the Imperius Curse. 

“Yeah,” he said in a drawl, “let’s not talk about how your family made it out fine while my brother is _dead_. You didn’t lose anyone!”

“I lost a friend!”

“He was trying to kill _my_ friend, so excuse me if I’m not feeling very tearful about it!”

“Boys,” Tom said sternly, which made Ron realise he’d shouted the last part. “If you’re going to fight, then you’ll have to take it outside.”

Ron and Malfoy exchanged a long baleful look that made the air between them sizzle. 

Then Ron sucked in a breath and said tightly, “Who’s fighting? Get me another one, Tom.”

Malfoy echoed him, and they went back to trying to outdo each other at drinking. Ron was feeling furious, an all-consuming kind of anger that actually helped clear his mind a little. He wanted to grab Malfoy by the collar and shake him until his teeth rattled. He wanted—

He heard a thump when Malfoy downed another pint and slammed the empty glass on the counter. Malfoy wiped his mouth with his sleeve, an undignified gesture of the sort Ron had never seen him do. It left his mouth strangely pink, and the sight transfixed Ron’s beer-addled brain for some reason. He drank absent-mindedly, unwilling to find himself lagging behind. He was starting to feel a little queasy and hoped he wasn’t going to puke—that would certainly mark him as the loser of their little contest.

“I—” Malfoy said. He closed and opened his mouth a few times, then moved as though he were about to stand up, before he collapsed and hit the floor with a dull _thud_. A couple of people cheered.

Ron said, “I won.” It took a moment for the information to really make it to his brain. “I won!” He kicked at Malfoy’s fallen body. “Oi, get up!”

Malfoy didn’t move, and when Ron did a quick survey of the room to see if there was any Slytherin left who would be willing to take care of him he didn’t find anyone. With a sigh he got off his seat and slung one of Malfoy’s arms over his shoulders, hauling him up to his feet. Malfoy groaned and managed to walk a little, but Ron still had to drag him most of the way. He was heavier than he looked and Ron wasn’t all that steady, so they lurched together like a boat on a raging sea all the way to the toilet, where Ron shoved Malfoy under cold water to sober him up. He could have used a spell, but his mind was too muddled for magic and he didn’t want to cause Malfoy brain damage or something. Well, not too much.

Malfoy gasped and flailed wildly, narrowly avoiding kicking Ron in the face. He pushed Ron away and straightened up, blinking owlishly.

“Wha’ happened?” he asked.

“You fainted,” Ron told him with delight. “Means I won, right?”

Malfoy brushed his dripping hair off his face. He scrunched his nose in distaste, but eventually sighed and said, “Right. So. Ask anything, I guess.”

Ron hadn’t thought of what he wanted from Malfoy. Winning had seemed like a goal in itself. He remembered how furious he’d been earlier, how badly he’d itched for a fight.

“I want to punch you. I want you to stay there and let me punch you.”

Malfoy’s eyes widened for a second, and then he snorted. “You don’t have a lot of imagination,” he said snidely.

“Do you want me to come up with worse? Because I definitely can.”

“No, no, all right. Do it.”

Malfoy clenched his fists to his sides and held himself rigid. He gave Ron a look that felt like a challenge. Ron hesitated a moment, because something felt wrong about hitting someone who wouldn’t defend themselves, but that look on Malfoy’s face helped him go through with it. He punched Malfoy in the mouth, just as he’d wanted to do earlier. Malfoy grunted, closed his eyes briefly at the moment of the impact, and then gingerly touched his swollen lip with a thumb as though checking for blood.

Ron rubbed his sore knuckles where they’d come into contact with Malfoy’s teeth. This felt very anticlimactic. He wasn’t experiencing the satisfaction he’d expected. 

As though reading his mind, Malfoy half-smiled. “That all you got?”

Ron grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the wall, lifting him off his feet so they could look each other in the eye. Even though it hadn’t been part of their bet, Malfoy didn’t oppose any resistance. He was flushed and his wet hair fell into his eyes, which gleamed from the alcohol or excitement or something else. Water pearled at the end of his eyelashes. Both of their breaths smelled so much like beer that they could have got drunk all over again from that alone.

 _I’m too drunk, I should go home with Harry, I’m going to do something stupid_. The thoughts seemed to reach him from very far away; they felt unsubstantial. What felt real, though, was the heat from Malfoy’s body, the vibrations from his heartbeat that Ron could feel from the way he held him.

“What’re you going to do?” Malfoy asked in a breath, and although he was smiling he sounded a bit uncertain.

He licked his lips, and something about the blink-you-miss-it flash of his pink tongue made Ron’s stomach flip-flop. He hoped he wasn’t about to throw up. 

“Weasley?”

Ron smashed their mouths together, muffling a surprised sound from Malfoy. As a kiss it wasn’t worth much, but it was rather meant as the continuation of Ron’s earlier punch. He tasted blood on Malfoy’s lips, so he must have broken skin. Malfoy grabbed his elbow, but it was to draw him closer instead of shoving him back and ending this madness.

 _I’ve gone mental_ , Ron thought, but his body had a mind of its own and he pressed closer to Malfoy against the wall. His hands were still tangled in Malfoy’s collar and they itched to do more, so he released it and let his hands feverishly wander down Malfoy’s ribs, his stomach. His mind had gone blank, no thought crossing it at all, and he was left only with a buzz of sensations: Malfoy’s chafed lips, the beer Ron could taste in his mouth, the silky feeling of his robe’s fabric, the warmth from his body. He startled when he felt Malfoy’s hands tug at his robe, but didn’t stop or pull away. His heart pounded in his ears and his head spun—the only time he’d felt anything like this before was when he’d been about to pass out.

“What are you—” he mumbled, his tongue feeling numb and uncooperative.

But he knew, of course, he knew and couldn’t or didn’t want to stop it. Blindly his hand found Malfoy’s crotch and palmed the hard line of his dick. They both hitched up their robes over their hips with hurried and uncoordinated movements and shuffled to align with each other. When their hard dicks came into contact, Ron groaned and his eyelids fluttered. _Merlin, but this feels good,_ he thought through a haze of booze and confused pleasure. 

“C’mon, Weasley,” Malfoy said. He was breathing too loud and too fast. “Come on, come on.”

They started rutting against each other, hard and fast. Ron planted a hand on the wall over Malfoy’s head for leverage and shoved his hips, trying to pound Malfoy into the wall, to crush him against it. Malfoy moaned, leaning his forehead on Ron’s shoulder, and the reaction gave Ron such a rush that his vision blackened for a split second.

“Like that?” he asked breathlessly.

“Shut up,” Malfoy bit out, vicious nails digging into Ron’s side.

“No, _you_ —shut up.”

He grabbed Malfoy’s mouth again and bit him, eliciting a hiss of pain. Ron swallowed the sound and licked the blood off Malfoy’s lips. _That’s one way to shut him up I’d never tried_ , Ron thought deliriously. He felt himself becoming more frantic as he got closer to climax, his vision blurring, his pulse roaring in his ears. When Malfoy came, clawing at Ron’s back and grunting against his mouth, Ron shoved a hand inside his underwear and started jerking off, desperate to get there too. He spilled all over his hand, eyes squeezed shut. He had to take a moment to catch his breath, feeling like he’d been dropped off the top of a mountain.

“Move,” he heard Malfoy say. 

He obeyed, feeling dumb and slow. He washed his hands at the sink and tugged his clothes back into place. In his peripheral vision he could see Malfoy do the same but they didn’t speak, and only looked at each other as they were about to leave the toilet. Malfoy’s pale face was blotched pink and his mouth looked red and swollen. Ron’s stupid dick twitched.

“Not a word to anyone,” Malfoy said, raising a finger in warning.

“Of course not,” Ron said. This was maybe the one thing they could agree on.

He went to find Harry at the bar and gave him a hard shake. Harry lifted his head and blinked blearily at him.

“Hey, come on, mate, wake up,” Ron said. “I need to get out of here.”

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked, annoyingly perceptive. Wasn't he supposed to be completely pissed?

Ron’s ears burned. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the pale spot of Malfoy’s hair drift away to the other side of the room. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “Nothing happened at all.”


End file.
